Malaya Initiative Foundation is proud to support the expansion of Ayala Foundation's CENTEX Digital Education program to public-school classrooms in Davao City. Our contribution reflects a simple conviction: Filipino students deserve learning environments that meet them where they are, equip teachers to respond to individual needs, and help every child build confidence in learning.
An investment in learning
The Philippines faces a learning crisis that demands solutions grounded in evidence, partnership, and respect for educators and communities. Malaya's support for CENTEX Digital Education is an early step in our long-term commitment to help Filipino learners develop the foundational and higher-order skills they need to thrive.
CENTEX Digital Education uses a "High Touch, High Tech" approach. It combines adaptive digital-learning tools with teacher-led instruction, coaching, and data-informed lesson planning. Technology is not treated as a substitute for teachers. Rather, it gives educators timely information about where students are succeeding and where they need additional support — so classroom time can be used more effectively.
For students, this can mean learning at an appropriate pace, receiving immediate feedback, and gaining more opportunities to practice skills. For teachers, it means having another tool to identify learning gaps, form targeted small groups, and design activities that respond to the needs of individual learners.
Why CENTEX matters
The CENTEX model has already demonstrated promising results in public elementary schools in San Marcelino, Zambales. During the 2024–25 school year, an externally evaluated pilot reached 1,635 learners across nine public elementary schools, alongside teacher training, coaching, and access to adaptive math content through Khan Academy.
After 12 weeks, students in participating classrooms improved their mathematics scores by an average of 29 percentage points, compared with 15 percentage points among comparison students. Researchers found that this difference was equivalent to approximately four additional months of learning within a three-month period.
Why teacher support made the difference: Learning gains did not come from devices alone. Teachers received intensive initial training, ongoing mentoring, and opportunities to collaborate with peers. By the end of the pilot, 85% of trained teachers were consistently using differentiated instruction based on student mastery levels, while all participating teachers reported integrating learner data into lesson planning.
These findings matter because they point to a practical principle: effective education technology must be connected to capable, supported teachers and to the day-to-day realities of public-school classrooms.
Supporting Davao City classrooms
Malaya's donation will help bring this approach to Davao City, extending opportunities for more public-school students and teachers to participate in a model designed around personalized learning and strong classroom practice.
The support is part of a joint contribution with Connext Global Solutions and other partners to Ayala Foundation's CENTEX Digital Education program. Together, the contribution is intended to expand access to improved learning opportunities for Filipino public-school students and support their long-term success.
As CENTEX reaches new communities, implementation will need to remain responsive to local conditions: internet access, devices, teacher workload, student digital readiness, language needs, and school leadership all affect whether a program can deliver meaningful results. The earlier pilot reinforced the importance of addressing these factors through sustained teacher support, flexible implementation, and strong partnerships with schools, local governments, and the Department of Education.
Partnership before prescription
This investment reflects Malaya's partnership-first approach. We do not believe that lasting education reform can be imposed from outside a community or solved through a single intervention. Progress depends on listening to teachers, learners, school leaders, families, government partners, and organizations that have built deep experience in Philippine education.
Ayala Foundation's work through CENTEX offers an opportunity to learn from a model that connects technology, teacher development, and evidence. Its initial implementation combined adaptive platforms, teacher coaching, classroom observation, and learning analytics — components that work together to make instruction more responsive to each learner.
For Malaya, this is what responsible philanthropy should look like: supporting proven partners, paying attention to evidence, and helping create conditions for approaches that can be sustained and scaled.
Education is freedom
Malaya takes its name from the Filipino word for freedom. We believe education is one of the most durable forms of freedom: the freedom to understand, question, communicate, participate, and shape one's future.
Our support for CENTEX Digital Education in Davao City is an investment in that freedom. It is an investment in teachers who are working to make every lesson more responsive. It is an investment in students who deserve to see themselves as capable learners. And it is an investment in the idea that a child's opportunities should not be limited by where they live or the learning gaps they inherit.
Sources: Ayala Foundation — CENTEX Digital Education; Learning Generation Initiative — High Touch, High Tech Philippines Pilot Report (2026); Ayala Foundation LinkedIn — Partner Recognition.